Jiddu Krishnamurti

“A dialogue is very important. It is a form of communication in which question and answer continue till a question is left without an answer. Thus the question is suspended between the two persons involved in this answer and question. It is like a bud with untouched blossoms . . . If the question is left totally untouched by thought, it then has its own answer because the questioner and answerer, as persons, have disappeared. This is a form of dialogue in which investigation reaches a certain point of intensity and depth, which then has a quality that thought can never reach.”

“The significance of life is living.”

“We carry about us the burden of what thousands of people have said and the memories of all our misfortunes. To abandon all that is to be alone, and the mind that is alone is not only innocent but young -- not in time or age, but young, innocent, alive at whatever age -- and only such a mind can see that which is truth and that which is not measurable by words.”

“virtue can flower only when there is freedom.”

“This is love: the flowering of love is meditation.”

“The very desire to be certain,to be secure,is the beginning of bondage.It's only when the mind is not caught in the net of certainty,and is not seeking certainty, that it is in a state of discovery.”

“Religion is the frozen thought of man out of which they build temples.”

“It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy.”

“When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love.”

“One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end.”

“It is only the innocent mind which knows what love is, and the innocent mind can live in the world which is not innocent.”

“You must be a light unto yourself.”

“I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.”

“Governments want efficient technicians, not human beings, because human beings become dangerous to governments – and to organized religions as well. That is why governments and religious organizations seek to control education.”

“Discipline must be without control, without suppression, without any form of fear...It is not discipline first and then freedom; freedom is at the very beginning, not at the end.”

“So if you can look at all things without allowing pleasure to creep in - at a face, a bird, the colour of a sari, the beauty of a sheet of water shimmering in the sun, or anything that gives delight - if you can look at it without wanting the experience to be repeated, then there will be no pain, no fear, and therefore tremendous joy. It is the struggle to repeat and perpetuate pleasure which turns it into pain. Watch it in yourself. The very demand for the repetition of pleasure brings about pain, because it is not the same, as it was yesterday. You struggle to achieve the same delight, not only to your aesthetic sense but the same inward quality of the mind, and you are hurt and disappointed because it is denied to you.”

“Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.”

“If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.”

“To live is to find out for yourself what is true, and you can do this only when there is freedom, when there is continuous revolution inwardly, within yourself.”

“There are those who don’t believe in God and yet do good. There are those who believe in God and kill for that belief; those who prepare for war because they claim they want peace, and so on. So one has to ask oneself what need there is to believe at all in anything, though this doesn’t deny the extraordinary mystery of life. But belief is a word, a thought, and this is not the thing, anymore than your name is actually you.Through experience you hope to touch the truth of your belief, to prove it to yourself, but this belief conditions your experience. It isn’t that the experience comes to prove the belief, but rather that the belief begets the experience. Your belief in God will give you the experience of what you call God. You will always experience what you believe and nothing else.”